Dallas – They’re called “greenies” or “beans,” and for decades they have been baseball’s dirty little not-so-secret secret.
Whether mixed into the coffee pot for a very potent cup of joe, or gulped down in pill form, amphetamines had become the accepted pick-me-up for players ground down by a 162-game treadmill. But with a tougher new anti-drug program finally in place, major-leaguers will have to take their coffee black from now on.
Phil Garner, manager of the National League champion Houston Astros, admits he took amphetamines as a member of the 1979 World Series champion Pittsburgh Pirates. He said it has been an accepted part of the clubhouse but that it would be a mistake to paint baseball players as pill-popping junkies.
“It sounds bad, because it is drug abuse,” Garner said at last week’s winter meetings. “And it is wrong because if you don’t have a prescription for them, it’s wrong. But it’s not as wrong as it may sound like, and guys aren’t ogres for doing it.”
The reason for ingesting amphetamines is simple: The drug sends a bolt of energy through a bedraggled athlete by increasing the heart rate and stimulating the central nervous system.
In his 2003 autobiography, Red Sox pitcher David Wells wrote why “beans” were an accepted part of baseball culture.
“Cheap and easy to find, these little buggers will open your eyes, and sharpen your focus, and get your blood moving on demand, over and over again, right through a full 162-game season,” Wells wrote.
Former Rockies outfielder Ellis Burks said he knew of players who tried to get other players to use amphetamines.
“I’m sure it’s a peer pressure kind of thing,” he said. “It’s like, ‘Dude, we’ve been doing this for years, just try this here. Or just try this drink.”‘
Estimates range widely on how prevalent the use of uppers has been in baseball.
“It might have been 40 percent, it might be 20 percent, but it wasn’t 100 percent,” Garner said.
In 2003, former Padres great Tony Gwynn told The New York Times that 50 percent of position players regularly use greenies. This year on HBO, former major-leaguer Chad Curtis estimated 85 percent of players used greenies at least once when he played.
Use of amphetamines without a prescription became a federal crime under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. The law was passed partly because amphetamines are physically harmful and addictive. Side effects can include heart palpitations and increased blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks.
But there is an even darker side to popping greenies, according to Franklin Lisnow, executive director of the University of Colorado’s new Center for Dependence and Addiction Rehabilitation.
“The problem is that the body continually builds up a tolerance, so it takes more and more pills to do the same thing,” he said. “The risk is that they may make you feel like Superman for a short time, but you have to take more to feel that way again. Plus, continued use makes people paranoid. And denial of a problem is the same with this drug as with all drugs.”
Garner said continued use often leads to addiction.
“We need to educate players so they begin to realize that the law of diminishing returns definitely fits here,” he said. “You take (amphetamines) for a few days, you feel great and you think you are playing good, so you do a little bit more. Then your sleep patterns are disrupted, your eating patterns are disrupted and the next thing you know, you are going downhill and you are psychological addicted. Physiologically, you feel like you are really making progress when you’re not.
“If somebody puts a camera on you and you watch, you will soon realize that you are really not doing that well.”
Twins manager Ron Gardenhire applauds baseball’s tougher stance, but said it’s up to players to clean up their own act.
“Now that the league is going to put a stop to it, I have to be one of the guys that tries to enforce it, too,” he said. “But I’m not going to walk around the clubhouse and say, ‘Don’t do this’ or ‘Don’t do that.’ But now, maybe Advil and a cup of coffee are going to have to work.”
Rockies manager Clint Hurdle also likes the crackdown.
“The fact that we are serious, and the fact that we are going to follow through are moves that needed to be made – desperately,” Hurdle said. “This will give the fans the opportunity to enjoy the game at its purest.”
Staff writer Troy E. Renck contributed to this report.
Patrick Saunders can be reached at 303-820-5459 or psaunders@denverpost.com.
